The impact of education research on chemistry teachers' practice: Teaching A-level students to plan experiments

Research Investigators

The impact of education research on chemistry teachers' practice: Teaching A-level students to plan experiments

Project Number
RS 2/14 TKC

Project Duration
July 2014 - June 2017

Status
Completed

Abstract
This proposed study is the first phase extension of a previous research project (RS 2/11 TKC) which sought to understand the instructional and curricular decision making of chemistry teachers, their views of research informing their practice, what specific knowledge they want from research, and how to make research accessible, comprehensible and usable to them. The study will investigate the use of educational research by A-Level chemistry teachers' in the development of a research-informed instructional package on planning experiments. It also seeks to determine the factors which facilitate or impede the use of educational research by the teachers and how the researcher can work with and support the teachers in their use of educational research to develop the instructional package. NIE researchers can be important intermediaries in recommending relevant research, facilitating "productive discussion of research evidence" (Ratcliffe et al., 2004, p. 36), and working with teachers to translate research for use in the local context (Nelson, Leffler, & Hansen, 2009). The A-level teachers with whom the researcher planned to collaborate suggested the topic of planning experiment as students found the topic difficult in their school. In addition, a quick e-mail check with four other A-level institutions saw 18 teachers agreeing that planning experiment was difficult for students, indicating that instructional package to be developed in the study could be of relevance and interest to a wider group of chemistry teachers.